SCHOOL INSPECTORS.

Gisborne Times, Volume XXVIII, Issue 2737, 16 February 1910, Page 5

SCHOOL INSPECTORS.

CONFERENCE. AT WELLINGTON

(Per Press Association. |

WELLINGTON, Feb. 15. A conference of the Dominion’s school inspectors opened this morning, Mr. Hogben presiding. The chairman said that it- was satisfactory to note that the criticisms directed against the syllabus were concerned with matters of detail. He did not consider the syllabus to be perfect, as in certain respects it was largely of a tentative character. It might be possible to make modifications. A teacher’s motion, that the present five classes of teachers’ certificates be reduced to three, was lost in favor of an amendment that the matter be referred to the training committee.

At the • School Inspectors’ Conference to-day, Mr. Mulgan (Canterbury) moved that all junior scholarships should lie open t-o pupils attending private schools where they have been inspected for three years under the Education Act prior to granting such scholarships. A long discussion followed. All the speakers, save one, Mr. Hill (Hawke’s Bay), strongly supported the proposal, and the motion was carried on the voices, there being two dissentients.

Upon Mr. Mulgan’s motion, it was agreed that, in view of the many excellent text books and class books now being brought out by leading publishing firms, the Department’s “List of class books for public schools” bo extended, and that a choice of books wider than now obtains be allowed to teachers in making selections in terms of the Department’s.memorandum dealing with the grant for free school bocks.

Air. Wvllie (Southland) moved that maps of tlie education district he prepared bv the Education Department for school use.

Relief maps were suggested by Mr. Petrie, while Mr.' - Hill stated that a map of the principal watersheds of New Zealand, prepared by the Survey Department, should be in every school. A cheaper way of getting the required publications mentioned by Mr. Stewart was to send’ corrections of New Zealand features to the Home map-makers. “It’s all a question of money,” was the Inspector-General’s comment. The motion was adopted, with the addition, “such maps to show surface relief.”

To the training committee was relegated the following proposal by Mr. E. K. Mulgan —“That for each of the four training colleges two annual extension scholarships he established open to all students at tho end of their second year of training, and tenable for one year, at some university college or its equivalent to be approved hv the Minister of and that holders of scholarships he required to specialise in some subject for which _Jdiey have shown special aptitude, anti that the scholarships he awarded partly on the result of an examination and partly on the recommendation of the principal of the training college.” The conference resumes in the morn, ing.